“Who is?” says I.
“My wife and the little ones,” he says.
“More shame for you to let ’em,” says I.
“Man, man,” says he, and he looks me so savage in the face that I thought he meant to hit me. “Man, man,” he says, “I’ve tried all, everything that a husband and father could do; I’ve fought for, prayed for, begged for work; I’ve tramped the great city through day after day; I’ve sought work till I’ve turned home heartsick and weary, to sell, piece by piece, everything we could sell, till look at me,” he says, “look at me; who’d give me work? Who’d believe me honest? Who wouldn’t drive me away as a vagabond if I asked for work? And what did I do to-night? I took what no man would give me—bread for my starving wife and children, and now—God help them, for I can’t!”
He’d been speaking as fierce as a lion at first, and now he broke down all at wunst, and seemed as though he was a-goin’ to bust out a crying again; but he didn’t. And so we walks on, and I breaks the loaf in two pieces, pulls it apart, yer know, sir, crummy way, and when the charge was made, for I found the baker a-waitin’ at the station, for he got there first, I waited to see my prisoner into a cell, and afore he was locked up, I shoves the half-loaf under his arm, and a great-coat as lay over a bench as we went along. Then off I goes arter the baker, who was one o’ your red-faced, chuffy little chaps, one o’ them coves as has sech a precious good opinion o’ themselves. He’d only jest got round the corner when I hails him, and he stops short.
“Well, governor,” I says, “what’ll yer take to drink? give it a name.”
“Oh,” says he, with a bit of a sneer, “you mean what am I a-goin’ to stand?”
“No I don’t,” I says, “for I’ve jest had plenty.”
“What d’yer mean?” sez he.
“Why, that there poor chap as we’ve jest locked up.”